What Does 2 Kings 21:15 Mean in the King James?
Because they have done that which was evil in my sight, and have provoked me to anger, since the day their fathers came forth out of Egypt, even unto this day.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
Coming out of constriction does not, by itself, release the harmful pattern carried forward.
THE MEANING
This verse names a pattern still present: what is harmful in the LORD’s sight keeps stirring his anger. “From Egypt unto this day” stretches that pattern across generations and into the present; a person can leave a narrow place while still carrying what formed there.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie it undoes is that leaving a constricting place automatically ends the harm practiced there.
THE ROOT
מִצְרַיִם
Mitzrayim
GROWS FROM
צרר
To bind, press in, or make narrow.
The place-name carries the image of the two narrows. The verse’s “came forth out of Egypt” is an outward departure from constriction, yet its ending, “even unto this day”, shows that departure alone does not release the harmful pattern carried forward.
ALSO GROWS
tsar: Narrow; constricted.
צַר
The root’s narrowness makes constriction audible inside the name “Egypt.”
tsarah: Distress; trouble.
צָרָה
The same narrowing appears as lived distress, giving “came forth out of Egypt” the shape of movement out of constriction.
Mitzrayim: Egypt; the two narrows.
מִצְרַיִם
The dual ending holds the image of paired constrictions within the place-name.
הָרַע
haraʿ
GROWS FROM
רעע
To be bad or harmful; to do harm.
The word for “evil” shares its root with words for doing harm and for calamity. English can make evil sound like an abstract label, while the Hebrew family keeps harmful action and harm itself close together.
ALSO GROWS
raʿ: Bad; evil; harmful.
רַע
This is the adjective in “that which was evil,” naming the quality of what is done.
heraʿ: To do evil or cause harm.
הֵרַע
The verbal form makes the root’s force active: the harm is something done.
raʿah: Harm; calamity.
רָעָה
This related form can name the harm that is suffered, as well as the harmful act that brings it about.
מַכְעִסִים
makhʿisim
GROWS FROM
כעס
Anger, vexation; to provoke or anger.
“provoked me to anger” in this verse is makhʿisim. The Hebrew describes an ongoing provocation, not a single flare-up. Paired with the repeated “even unto this day,” the word presents anger as the response stirred by a pattern that keeps happening.
ALSO GROWS
kaʿas: Anger; vexation.
כַּעַס
The noun names the anger stirred by the repeated conduct.
hikhʿis: To provoke or anger.
הִכְעִיס
This verb shares the root with the verse’s ongoing “provoked” and keeps the focus on repeated action.
THE PATTERN
Leaving a place of constriction does not automatically release a pattern carried within and repeated afterward.
And the children of Israel said unto them, Would to God we had died by the hand of the LORD in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the flesh pots, and when we did eat bread to the full; for ye have brought us forth into this wilderness, to kill this whole assembly with hunger.For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.THE THREAD
Wherefore should the Egyptians speak, and say, For mischief did he bring them out, to slay them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth? Turn from thy fierce wrath, and repent of this evil against thy people.The Hebrew root רעע appears in this verse’s “evil” and again in Exodus 32:12’s “mischief” and “evil,” alongside Egypt and anger. The shared root reaches from harmful action to the harm people fear, placing anger within a chain of consequences rather than making evil only an abstract label.
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